ISIS suicide bombers breach defenses west of Baghdad

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – The Iraqi Army's Anbar operations command said ISIS militants used four suicide car bombs to break through defense lines of Iraqi security forces on Saturday in a strategic area west of Baghdad.

“Earlier this morning, Daesh militants advanced in the Garma district of western Baghdad, launching the assault through three suicide car bombs rigged with explosives and a bulldozer bomb,” Abdul Amir al-Shamri, commander of the Anbar operation command, told news agencies on Saturday. Daesh is the the Arabic acronym for Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, or ISIS.

“Later, we managed to repel the ISIS assault using the AT4 US missile defense system, killing the extremist attackers. Iraqi forces defeated ISIS attempts to take back their dead bodies,” Shamri said. 

Earlier this month, a security source told Rudaw that despite the numerous Iraqi forces deployed in Anbar province there had struggled to defeat the extremist fighters. 

“The slow pace of the operation has disappointed residents of Anbar province,” the source said.